Grammar schools will return education to those students who are motivated and keep the moor-ons isolated, where they can bake cakes and learn to pump up tyres. We need to stop focussing on the few and start thinking about the thousands, who are denied an outstanding education.

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So rather than challenging those few (and their parents), your solution is to cream off the most able to some grammars and confine the rest to schools for losers.

You could help towards those "thousands" being denied an outstanding education by switching your own focus to those three or four feral students in your own classes and get a grip on their behaviour. Try providing them with a chef's pinny and a footpump and see how that works out.

The current situation cannot continue. You cannot keep putting thousands of very bright students in bog standard comps of various descriptions, where they are held back from shining. They are being stopped from developing outstandingly brilliant personal, social and intellectual skills because of the minority of feral students in most classes. Every one of the classes I teach at the moment has three or four out-of-control students, who will not behave, who SLT cannot control and whose parents can't or won't sort out. They are never suspended or excluded yet hold back so many from learning and becoming what they could. It's a national disgrace.

Grammar schools will return education to those students who are motivated and keep the moor-ons isolated, where they can bake cakes and learn to pump up tyres. We need to stop focussing on the few and start thinking about the thousands, who are denied an outstanding education.

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I completely agree there are major behaviour and attitude issues in many schools that are not being adequately addressed. However I cannot see how creating grammar schools to remove some of the "good" students is going to address that, the "decent" students that get left behind would simply suffer even more.

However I cannot see how creating grammar schools to remove some of the "good" students is going to address that, the "decent" students that get left behind would simply suffer even more.

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There is an element of this, however it's also the case that the few "good"/bright/talented kids are able to stand out and perhaps more easily gain recognition. They also get very positive attention by the teachers albeit in between those teachers having to deal with the problem kids.

What can't be avoided is the stigma attached to the school itself, tarnished in a flood of snobbery and ignorance.

What can't be avoided is the stigma attached to the school itself, tarnished in a flood of snobbery and ignorance.

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Hence the need for inspirational heads who combine firm discipline, strong support for middle managers and class teachers, vision and charisma. I had the privilege of working for just such a head for a few years in Essex.
Just the sort of head, IHMO, who is being hunted out of state education.

As an ex-grammar school student, I don't have an issue with grammar schools expanding: it saved my life. However, the system by which students are selected needs to be fairer so that a wider mix of children attend and it is actually a genuinely fair process. In the 90s, my grammar school was open from Year 9-13 and there was no entry test or exam; students were selected on the basis of teacher recommendation (you had to be academic but also hard-working and able to cope with the work) and there was a real mix of backgrounds, races and parental income. A few years after I started they changed to an entrance exam and the mix suddenly became almost entirely white and middle-class as parents had their children tutored to get in.

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Can we trust all primary teachers to decide (especially with the pressures on them to conform, according to these boards)?
One of my children got great assessments at primary for 3 years, then low ones with the next teacher. Not that she didn't like him, but she didn't think he was as able as the others. He seemed to work as hard. Equally some of the others who didn't do so well in other years got top assessments from her.
One day of exams seems unfair for other reasons.
OP makes the point about white middle-classes taking over-at the only grammar I worked in, although it was a mainly white area, only 65% ish of the students were white. One of the mums said it is because white families are less likely to value education and be strict-she said they were far less likely to bother engaging a tutor-so a very different situation to the school you went to.
I'm torn about this issue.
I think it isn't fair-how can you judge children at 11-but let's face it, we already have segregation as the rich can use indys and tutors, so at least this way poorer families have a chance. And at least in the area I worked in then, all the schools seemed better than areas than had all comps. And the grammar was way ahead of its time in pastoral/SEN support.
And even in a comp, the experience that nice middle-class Tabby has in all the top sets might be very different from the bottom set boy who sits in large, noisy classes where children who really should be receiving specialised support aren't...

If people think Grammar schools don't have any kids who misbehave and are vile they are deluding themselves. I teach in a selective grammar and without any doubt the worst kids, with a cheeky, insolent, arrogant, entitled attitude I've seen in my 29 years in teaching are in this school. However critical mass is everything, and they are generally cowed by having enough kids who really want to do well and already know what they want to study at Uni and where in Year 8.
Secondly I will repeat my earlier point that grammar schools cast their net too wide. They should not be allowed to take kids from 25 miles away when the school was set up to benefit poor but bright kids in the immediate locality of the school. Some grammar schools are totally divorced from the communities they sit in the middle of, and recruit almost none of their pupils from it. This is socially divisive and damaging.

If people think Grammar schools don't have any kids who misbehave and are vile they are deluding themselves. I teach in a selective grammar and without any doubt the worst kids, with a cheeky, insolent, arrogant, entitled attitude I've seen in my 29 years in teaching are in this school. However critical mass is everything, and they are generally cowed by having enough kids who really want to do well and already know what they want to study at Uni and where in Year 8.
Secondly I will repeat my earlier point that grammar schools cast their net too wide. They should not be allowed to take kids from 25 miles away when the school was set up to benefit poor but bright kids in the immediate locality of the school. Some grammar schools are totally divorced from the communities they sit in the middle of, and recruit almost none of their pupils from it. This is socially divisive and damaging.

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This is inevitably going to happen. It simply won't be financially viable to open new centres of excellence on premises with grounds and equipment amd expert teachers to offer an enhanced curriculum in every town. So kids will be taxied in from far and wide.
Enough nostalgia, already.
We've been sold down the Swanee to pay for Trident. Grammar schools are just teasers to sex up the Education debate. You can't have one.
If you want an upgrade to first class, you have to pay.

If you put a point in such emotive terms, then the answer is no, because no one is being condemned, schools are not being dominated by a few badly behaved kids and there are no grammar schools to give the ones who pass an arbitrary selection process what might or might not be a better chance anyway.
We can't continue discussing how fine the emperor's new clothes might be.
There aren't any.

If you put a point in such emotive terms, then the answer is no, because no one is being condemned, schools are not being dominated by a few badly behaved kids and there are no grammar schools to give the ones who pass an arbitrary selection process what might or might not be a better chance anyway.
We can't continue discussing how fine the emperor's new clothes might be.
There aren't any.

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There are lots of grammar schools around here. Lots of independents too.

there are no grammar schools around here for approximately 40 miles, only one fee paying grammar every 25 miles or so.
Sadly many of the secondary schools around here are dominated by a minority of poorly behaved young people. Especially once you get below the top set or two in most subjects. Many management teams ignore the behaviour or blame it on a constant stream of new teachers and supply staff.

sadly no one supports the unions so the behaviour and poor management goes on unchallenged. and with schools forced to take no effective action....
interesting around here to see the huge difference between schools run by the County LA and those run by two city LAs. and even the difference between schools within less than half a mile of each other.

I knew of a grammar school which was in quite a poor area of the town, but very few children from this area actually went to the grammar school. An outreach programme was started and local schools were invited to participate, allowing their most able Year 5s time to engage with other able children to work together on a variety of challenging and stimulating projects. The grammar school's facilities and transport were offered for this. However I gather that the schools in the poor area on the grammar's doorstep didn't sign up for the programme because they didn't agree with grammar schools, so certainly weren't going to encourage their pupils to go there. I think this was very sad!

I knew of a grammar school which was in quite a poor area of the town, but very few children from this area actually went to the grammar school. An outreach programme was started and local schools were invited to participate, allowing their most able Year 5s time to engage with other able children to work together on a variety of challenging and stimulating projects. The grammar school's facilities and transport were offered for this. However I gather that the schools in the poor area on the grammar's doorstep didn't sign up for the programme because they didn't agree with grammar schools, so certainly weren't going to encourage their pupils to go there. I think this was very sad!